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| Prison system sued in killing |
| By Sacramento Bee |
| Published: 08/01/2005 |
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The family of a correctional officer who was fatally stabbed by an inmate sued the California prison system for $100 million last Tuesday, alleging that the officer would have survived if he had been issued a protective vest. In the civil-rights lawsuit filed in federal District Court in Los Angeles, the family of Officer Manuel Gonzalez, 43, said officials at the California Institution for Men in Chino should have handed out the stab-proof vests, which sat in a warehouse for four months before the January slaying. "The initial stab wound that Officer Gonzalez suffered went directly to his heart," said Mark J. Peacock, one of the attorneys representing the Gonzalez family. "If he had been wearing the protective vest ... he would have survived." The suit also alleges corrections officials should not have housed Gonzalez's killer with the general prison population. Jon Christopher Blaylock, a "three-strikes" inmate, was serving 75 years to life for attempting to murder a Los Angeles police officer. He stabbed Gonzalez, a father of six who had worked in the prisons for 16 years, when Gonzalez let him out of his cell. Corrections spokesman Todd Slausek said the department and the officials named in the suit had not yet been served with copies of it, so he could not comment. "We will review it once we get served," Slausek said. Slausek said the Department of Corrections has already moved to improve security at the Chino institution in the wake of an inspector general's report on the Gonzalez slaying that found rampant problems. The warden, Lori DiCarlo, and her two chief deputies were relieved of their positions in June. Under civil service rules, all three have the right to transfer to other jobs in the department, but it is not yet clear whether any of them will choose to do that, Slausek said. Slausek said the department had handed out the vests that had been ordered, though there are still not enough vests for each of the roughly 30,000 officers in California's prison system. Corrections officials plan to ask lawmakers for money to buy more vests, Slausek said. The inspector general's report criticized the prison for housing a violent inmate like Blaylock with the general population and for failing to hand out protective vests. The report also faulted the prison for allowing inmates to fashion weapons and for not conducting more searches of cells to find them. |
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